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Tariffs On South Korea Would Put America First

It’s easy to get lost in trade figures and statistics—exports, imports, deficits, surpluses—the totality of information available about trade is overwhelming. In 2016, U.S. goods and services trade with South Korea totaled around $144.6 billion. Exports were $63.8 billion and imports were $80.8 billion. It doesn’t take much more than a basic grasp of arithmetic to see that there’s a sizable gap between those two figures, which is often referred to by economists as the United States’ trade deficit with South Korea.

Cracking down on predatory behavior carried out by South Korean firms would help to reduce that gap.

South Korea’s foreign direct investment in the United States (stock) was $40.1 billion in 2015, up 0.5 percent from 2014, while South Korea’s direct investment in the United States is led by wholesale trade and manufacturing.

During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to reverse the loss of jobs by reworking trade deals and